Food, family and memories are as intertwined in the South as if woven on the same thread. At any function we attend, from a party to a wedding to a funeral, we are as likely to talk as much about the food that was there, as we are about why we are gathered. ~Mary Foreman

I'm your cook, not your doctor. ~PAULA DEEN

I found out what the secret to life is: friends. Best friends. ~Ninny Threadgoode

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Thanks to MyBlogSpark, I recently had the opportunity to try Pillsbury® Grands!® Frozen Mini Biscuits, the new, tiny freezer-to-oven biscuits from your grocer's freezer case. Now I love my own homemade biscuits, and I'll be honest. I had never tried these. Lawdy mercy, they are good! Fantastic piping hot and straight out of the oven, I loved these. I mean look y'all, seriously.

They are the cutest, tiny little biscuits, about a Southern Belle three-biter, and fluffy on the inside but with that loveable crunch on the outside that we southern cooks are already endeared to, only with a smaller surface area. Translate: ♫More crunch y'all!♫

A perfect size for kids, there are countless ways to introduce these to meal time, from miniature ham sandwiches for the kids come lunchtime, to delicious sliders for football or evening entertaining to mini desserts. There are so many ways to make these biscuits and your family will love trying each one, and... with a little built-in portion control (that is if you can manage to resist them!) they can satisfy that biscuit craving at only 70 calories a piece, to help keep you on track with your calorie count.

Soooo, piping hot biscuits aside, I wanted to try and incorporate these mini treasures into a recipe, and remember that chicken stew that I made recently? This my friends, was where that stew was intended to land - topped off with some of these little, mini biscuits for a super easy biscuit topped chicken pot pie! I love getting multiple meals out of one meal anyway, so how about that - a 3 in 1 meal? Even better.

First, I started with my Garlic Roasted Chicken for meal one. Got a big family? Roast two chickens at one time and once it's cooled down enough, pull the meat off and place it into freezer bags. Love that! You'll easily have leftovers to make super quick weekday meals like I did with my Easy Chicken Stew for meal two. And last, the leftovers from that stew were turned into a casserole with this Biscuit Topped Chicken Pot Pie for meal three. Love that too!

Now this chicken pie makes a great casserole in a 9 x 9 baking dish, but I thought for those of you out there with little sous chefs running around, the idea of using little mini ramekins to make individual pies might be an appealing treat. Kids love having their own little individual dishes, and these little mini biscuits made a perfect topper for that!

Let's make some! The stew is a super simple dump and heat dish and very tasty, so even if you have to make it just for this chicken pie, no problem. Spoon the hot stew into a buttered baking dish or individual ramekins. Sprinkle some cooked, crumbled bacon on top of that.

I did let the biscuits thaw slightly so that I could cut them into pieces. Cut biscuits into halves or quarters, depending on the size of your ramekins. The ones pictured are the 7 ounce size, so I used two biscuits halved for each ramekin. For a larger 10 ounce ramekin, you'll probably need three biscuits. Add the biscuit pieces to the top of the ramekins and brush with melted butter. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until stew is bubbly and biscuits are golden brown and cooked through. How easy is that?

Be sure to let the ramekins cool down before letting little munchkins handle them!

Or ... go this route instead and simply transfer the hot stew into a buttered 9 x 9 inch casserole baking dish, and top it with whole biscuits instead. Bake. Easy.

Giveaway is CLOSED!!

Congratulations to Mari - you're the winner of the Pillsbury Mini Biscuit giveaway!! I've sent you an email, but you must respond to it within 48 hours or an alternate winner will be selected. Congratulations and thanks for participating and for reading Deep South Dish!!

How about a chance to try some of this little mini bites of fluff yourself? For free?

But wait! That's not ALL!!! {hehe, gotta love those late night infomercials, but seriously...}

They are also gonna throw in a $15 GIFT CARD to go towards your expenses to come up with a recipe creation using these mini biscuits!! Get out!

Simply leave a comment here and tell me how you will use that $15 to incorporate Pillsbury® Grands!® Frozen Mini Biscuits into your mealtime plan. What recipe might you make?

It's okay to enter anonymously, but please leave your first name and a way to contact you if you win!

Earn one bonus entry by sharing this post! Post about it to your Facebook page, Stumble it, blog about it, post on a cooking related bulletin board you frequent, or tweet about it from your Twitter account. You can post one bonus entry, one time each day - just be sure to come back here and leave a separate comment for each daily entry.

➮Giveaway closes on November 11, 2010 at 12:00 noon CST. ➮Open to residents of the United States only please.➮You must leave an email address in your comment, be linked to a public profile containing your email address, or provide some way for me to contact you, in case you win.➮You may send me an email if you don't want to post your email address publicly. Please put "Pillsbury Biscuit Giveaway" in the Subject line.➮The winner will be announced in this post and notified by email and will have 48 hours from the time of that email to reply and claim their win before an alternate winner will be selected.

118 comments:

I love Pillsbury Grand Biscuits and love..love..love..that they came out with these minis! I make a mean fried chicken and gravy, so what I think I'd do is fry up some chicken pieces that would fit on these mini's, stir up some creamy chicken gravy and make me some Fried Chicken and Gravy sliders.

Oh how cute! I've not seen these in our stores yet, but would definitely get them for the upcoming holidays...I would fry up some country ham and server slivers of that in between each little pillowy biscuit.I really like your idea too of the chicken pot pies!!

I use these a lot when I have to make a large batch of Chicken and Dumplings for a crowd. I also bake some off along with rolls and scratch made southern style biscuits as different people like different textures of bread.

I think I would like to make a fall dish of seasoned pork loin with pumpkin, turnip roots, butternut squash, apples and apricots, when done I'd like to roll my biscuits in a little butter and some herbs and bake them on top. Serve all with a little maple glaze. Sweet and Savory!

OMG..as much as I would want to eat 20 of these with just a piece of country ham and preserves I think I would love to make a dessert out of them. Maybe an upside down apple cobbler. Top the apple filling with a pecan praline topping then biscuits rolled in butter and cinnamon sugar...yum!

These biscuits look delish! We have a local shop that sell honey grown locally that is wonderful! They bottle regular, whipped, and whipped with cinnamon or lemon added. It would be terrific on these little biscuits with a pat of butter!!

Hmmm....never won anything so I would probably make individual chicken and dumplins, jerk chicken sliders and mini BLT'S....my mind is going to all kinds of things you could do with these little babies...

I love my own homemade biscuits but I have to admit that while I have not tried the mini biscuits I have tried the regular size frozen Grand's and they sure are good. I can think of all kinds of good ways to use these...chicken pot pies, chicken and biscuits and am wondering how they would be on top of a cobbler.

well i am a leader of a girl scout troop :) for thanksgiving we are doing stone soup for our parents and these mini biscuits are perrrfect to compliment the soup and im pretty sure they'd be awesome with your chicken and rice bake which i really seriously cannot wait to make tomorrow night!Courtneyclang089@yahoo.com

I have heard of these, but haven't tasted them yet. I would pull them apart, put a piece of whole chili pepper inside and a piece of mild cheddar, smash it together and bake it. I know it would be something awesome to eat. I would use the money to purchase all of the things to make this dish.

I don't wantcha to think I'm just stopping by to win your giveaway. I just happened to finally have a moment to catch up and here I find you're having a wonderful giveaway. We're big biscuit fans around here...we do biscuits and gravy a couple of times a month (at least) and I always serve em' with my beef stew. I bet my kiddos would especially love these lil' ones. What a great idea to use them for chicken pot pies. I'm off to check out your chicken stew recipe now!

We all love Pillsbury Grand Biscuits and since my biscuits never seem to come out right, they are grateful to Pillsbury! I am going to try your recipe for Chicken Stew. I've not had this before! Great ideas...thank you both! Carol W. in NC

Ohhh I love these tiny biscuits! I have so many recipes to use these with that I can't wait to start cooking! I definitely will be using them with the beef sliders instead of dinner rolls, with sausage gravy for breakfast, & the mini ham/cheese sandwiches I always make for appetizers! So many ideas! My family is going to love these!!!!sewell97@att.net

Crumble and cook sausage in large skillet over medium heat until browned. Stir in flour until dissolved. Gradually stir in milk. Cook gravy until it thickens. Season with salt and pepper. Serve hot over biscuits.

getting back to you about olive oil...see what a fogger I'm in..I forgot I made that up a week ago to post..and forgot all about it. but do tell Miss Mary...on the skin? Another of my blogger buds, says she uses it as a carrier oil...oh do tell ladies..I am getting interested in aromatherapy and oils....very cool stuff...I imagine it would be good on your face..do you do it straight? Or as a carrier...? I love bisquits, but can't think of any way other than sausauge bisquits and gravy..there are so many talented ladies with awsome ideas. As soon as I figure out what day it is and what I am supposed to be doing...hee hee...

I am anxious to try Mini-Grands, because the Grands biscuits are really yummy and the frozen ones are just so convenient!

If I won this giveaway, I'd use the $15 gift card to bring breakfast for my office Breakfast Club. We rotate bringing in a breakfast treat each Friday and I'd like to make something with the Mini-Grands, maybe a yummy breakfast casserole with Mini-Grand topping. Hope I win :-)

I would either use these tiny little tea biscuits to make biscuits and chocolate gravy, or I'd make tiny little pork-chop biscuits. I'd use the gift card to buy some of those boneless pork tenderloins, fry them up and place them right between those little biscuits. Or, I'd buy more cocoa and butter to make my chocolate gravy. Mmmmm....

I like to use mini grands in chicken and dumplins... yum yum... I have also used them with chicken pie, and chicken roll ups, very good... You have a great product and the mini's are perfect for little hands..

Every now & then, we have creamed chipped beef over biscuits or toast (my Dad called it S.O.S. when I was a kid!). It would be scrumptious over these biscuits...one of my "comfort" foods. (Tessa) (arnoldtl(at)sprynet(dot)com)

YUM!!! Mini biscuits---tasty biscuits all wrapped up in 3 little bites, I hear the Heavenly Chorus! :-)What would I do with them? Hmmm, lets see. With my southern cooking background, I would use them in chicken & dumplin's (southerners MUST leave off the -ings LOL), maybe country gravy and biscuits. Cook them up on a cold morning with some tasty country ham...oh I gotta stop here because my mouth is watering! :-D

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The classic southern plate for supper is made up of meat and three, cornbread or rolls & a tall glass of sweet iced tea.

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